And built their castles of dissolving sand To watch them overflow'd, or following up And flying the white breaker, daily left The little footprint daily wash'd away.

A narrow cave ran in beneath the cliff: In this the children play'd at keeping house.

Enoch was host one day, Philip the next, While Annie still was mistress; but at times

Enoch would hold possession for a week: "This is my house and this my little wife.' 'Mine too,' said Philip, 'turn and turn about:'

When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch strongermade

Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes

All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears,

Shriek out, 'I hate you, Enoch,' and at this

The little wife would weep for company, And pray them not to quarrel for her sake,

And say she would be little wife to both.

But when the dawn of rosy childhood

past,

And the new warmth of life's ascending

sun

Was felt by either, either fixt his heart On that one girl; and Enoch spoke his

love,

But Philip loved in silence; and the girl
Seem'd kinder unto Philip than to him;
But she loved Enoch; tho' she knew it
not,

And would if ask'd deny it. Enoch set
A purpose evermore before his eyes,
To hoard all savings to the uttermost,
To purchase his own boat, and make a
home

For Annie and so prosper'd that at last
A luckier or a bolder fisherman,
A carefuller in peril, did not breathe
For leagues along that breaker-beaten

coast

Than Enoch. Likewise had he served a year

On board a merchantman, and made himself

Full sailor; and he thrice had pluck'd a life

From the dread sweep of the downstreaming seas:

And all men look'd upon him favourably:

In harbour, by mischance he slipt and fell:

A limb was broken when they lifted him; And while he lay recovering there, his wife Bore him another son, a sickly one: Another hand crept too across his trade Taking her bread and theirs and on him fell,

Altho' a grave and staid God-fearing man, Yet lying thus inactive, doubt and gloom. He seem'd, as in a nightmare of the night, To see his children leading evermore Low miserable lives of hand-to-mouth, And her, he loved, a beggar: then he pray'd

'Save them from this, whatever comes to me.'

And while he pray'd, the master of that ship

Enoch had served in, hearing his mischance,

Came, for he knew the man and valued him,

Reporting of his vessel China-bound, And wanting yet a boatswain. Would he go?

There yet were many weeks before she